[Preservative therapies of injured central nervous system by gene transfer]

The central nervous system (CNS) injury causes severe loss of functions, and the development of therapies to recover the functions can be an important target. The present study highlighted the preservation-oriented therapy by transferring genes to the injured neurons. To identify therapeutic targets for the preservative therapies of injured CNS, we focused on clarifying the mechanism underlying the degeneration and regeneration of neurons after injuries using nerve injury models of animals. We have identified several genes, some of which were the survive-promoting and others were death-promoting molecules. In addition another subset of genes were assumed to be associated with promoting nerve regeneration. The single expression of variety of molecules by a viral vector was proved to have the potential to rescue and recover, and this was also confirmed in CNS injury model. We assumed that the most important issue was the balance of levels between the pro-survive and pro-death molecules, which expressed in response to nerve injury. Those suggest that variety of molecules could be a therapeutic target for neurodegenerative disease as well as the neuron protection after traumatic injury. Combining both the transplantation-oriented and the preservation-oriented strategies would give us more potent therapeutic possibilities.